PHILADELPHIA, Dec 2, (AP): US President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba is disqualified from serving as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor despite his administration’s maneuvers to keep her in the role, an appeals court said Monday. A panel of judges from the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in Philadelphia sided with a lower-court judge's ruling after hearing oral arguments at which Habba was present on Oct 20.

"It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place. Its efforts to elevate its preferred candidate for US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, to the role of Acting US Attorney demonstrate the difficulties it has faced - yet the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the US Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability,” the court wrote in a 32-page opinion.

It concluded: "We will affirm the District Court’s disqualification order.” The ruling comes amid the push by Trump's Republican administration to keep Habba as the acting US attorney for New Jersey, a powerful post charged with enforcing federal criminal and civil law. It also comes after the judges questioned the government's moves to keep Habba in place after her interim appointment expired and without her getting Senate confirmation.

Habba said after that hearing in a statement posted to X that she was fighting on behalf of other candidates to be federal prosecutors who have been denied a chance for a Senate hearing. The White House had no immediate comment on Habba and referred questions to the Justice Department. Messages were left Monday seeking comment from the US attorney's office in New Jersey, Habba’s personal staffer and the Justice Department.

The decision affirmed Habba is serving unlawfully, attorneys for the appellees said in an emailed statement. "We will continue to challenge President Trump’s unlawful appointments of purported U.S. Attorneys wherever appropriate,” said attorneys Abbe Lowell, Gerry Krovatin and Norm Eisen in the statement. Habba is hardly the only Trump administration prosecutor whose appointment has been challenged by defense lawyers.

Last week, a federal judge dismissed criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after concluding that the hastily installed prosecutor who filed the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed to the position of interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Justice Department has said it intends to appeal the rulings.